European summit in Brussels on 28 and 29 June 2018

Merkel under pressure on the eve of EU migration summit

On Thursday 28 and Friday 29 June 2018, a European Summit of the Heads of state and Government of the European Union will be held in Brussels in the buildings of the Council of the European Union, at the Rue de la Loi. A safety zone will be set up. Only authorized persons can enter this zone on foot.

Limits of the safety zone?

The safety zone will be closed on 28 June (from 12:30 pm) and 29 June:

Traffic circle Schuman

Rue Froissart, between the Rue Belliard and the Traffic circle Schuman

Rue de la Loi, between the Traffic circle Schuman and 'Residence Palace'

Rue Juste Lipse

Attention: only vehicles authorized by the services of the Council of the European Union and the police will have access. Deliveries will not be possible. Within this safety perimeter, garbage bags, bicycles or terraces are not allowed on public roads.

Who can enter the safety zone?

Following people can enter the safety zone on foot, on the footpaths at the side of the buildings, not at the side of the Justus Lipsius building:the local residents with their ID cardthe employees and the shopkeepers with an ID card and a certificate delivered by the employer every person with a pass and ID card

Where to obtain a 'pass' or certificate?

The demands can be downloaded at www.polbru.be/eurotop and must be sent electronically to the police station of the 5th division of the Police of Brussels Capital Ixelles, Boulevard Clovis 10 - 1000 Brussels - 02 279 85 35 or 02 279 85 36. The passes will be available there from 18 June 2018 (possibly after the necessary checks).

Local traffic

Some streets will get a local traffic regulation: rue Archimède between the rue Stévin and the rond-point Schuman avenue de Cortenberg, between the rue Stévin and the rond-point Schuman rue de la Loi, between the avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée and the rond-point Schuman avenue d'Auderghem, between the rue Belliard and the rond-point Schuman rue Breydel

Parking will be forbidden in the safety zone in the streets with local traffic

Chaussée d'Etterbeek, between the Rue Belliard and the Rue Van Maerlant

Rue Van Maerlant Rue Belliard, between the Chaussée d'Etterbeek and the Avenue d'Auderghem

Public transport

The bus lines of the STIB and De Lijn that drive through the perimeter, are diverted.

The metro rides normally. In contrast to previous summits, the metro stops at the Schuman metro station again. The railway station will be open as well.

More information: from Monday till Friday from 8 am till 6 pm and on Saturday from 8 am till noon at 02 279 85 35 or 36 or www.polbru.be

Angela Merkel was under fire at home and abroad on Wednesday night as European Union leaders prepared to meet in Brussels on Thursday for a crunch summit to resolve their differences over the bloc’s three-year migrant crisis.

The German chancellor will arrive in Brussels with her Bavarian CSU coalition partners still threatening to pull down her government and Italy and other eastern EU states determined to defy her once unquestioned authority.

The EU summit comes after a turbulent week for Mrs Merkel that has exposed her growing weakness at home and apparently irreconcilable divisions in the EU over how to address the migrant crisis.

Donald Tusk, the European Council president, warned leaders that the debate was becoming “increasingly heated” and that the EU’s failure to defend its borders was handing winning arguments to populists with a “tendency towards overt authoritarianism”.

“The stakes are very high. And time is short,” he wrote in his invitation letter to leaders that also implicitly rebuked Mrs Merkel by warning Europe’s voters wanted to see leaders “restoring their sense of security” after the 2015 where EU borders were effectively thrown open by the German leader.

Europe’s internal divisions were highlighted again yesterday in horse-trading over how to deal with a rescue vessel in the Mediterranean carrying 230 migrants which had been refused permission to dock in Italy or Malta for the last six days.

Malta finally gave permission for the Dutch-registered Lifeline to dock, but only after eight EU states - France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Malta - agreed to take a share of the migrants.

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the situation was "unique" and could not be considered a blueprint for handling future rescues, while Theo Francken, the Belgian minister for asylum and migration, said on Twitter it must be a “one-off operation”.

But Italy, which is demanding reforms to the EU’s Dublin rule that requires migrants to be registered in the first EU country they land in, hailed it as a political “victory” for its campaign to share out all new arrivals.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new hardline interior minister who has refused permission for NGO rescue ships to dock in Italy, heralded the deal as "another success of the Italian government".

Germany was a notable absentee from the list of accepting states, however, reportedly at the insistence of Horst Seehofer, the hardline interior minister from the Bavarian CSU who is demanding Italy and other EU states take back migrants who come north to Germany

The scale of the task confronting Mrs Merkel was clear from remarks from the Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, who was cheered in parliament yesterday when he proclaimed: “Whoever lands in Italy, lands in Europe. Italy’s coasts are Europe’s coasts”.

The draft EU summit conclusions put heavy emphasis on bolstering the EU’s Frontex border force and creating ‘disembarkation platforms’ to off-load migrants back to non-EU states reflected the growing influence of hardline voices like Mr Seehofer, Mr Salvini and the leaders of Austria and Hungary who want the emphasis to be firmly on keeping migrants out.

Mrs Merkel is still calling for an “all European” solution to the migration crisis despite the vast differences between EU capitals making it virtually impossible for her to deliver on Mr Seehofer’s demand to get EU states to take migrants back or risk Germany unilaterally closing its border.

Such a move would risk a domino effect across Europe, threatening the EU Schengen free travel zone and forcing Mrs Merkel to sack Mr Seehofer, leading either new elections or creating an unstable minority government.

Talks between the coalition partners ended inconclusively in Berlin on Tuesday night, with Volker Kauder, a senior CDU member of parliament described the situation as “very serious”.